At last the moment has arrived! We touched down in Lisbon on a glorious sunny day. We stayed one night in Lisbon with friends and then headed up to our new home-to-be. As anticipated it looks rather different to when we were here in May. The ground is quite dry and brown but a few of the unrecognisable trees from May are now laden with fruit – apples, pears, peaches and walnuts. All over the area are entanglements of briars with redcurrents and the smallest blackberries I have ever seen. The only fruit trees that are yet to ripen appear to be the oranges and olives.

We also moved into our temporary accommodation. It’s quite an attractive house on the side of a small valley with views over to the small village of Via Vai with its local church which gives out a pleasant little tune on the half hour. That and the occasional bark of dogs and constant twitter of birds are the only noise. We rented the place from a Dutch lady who took us to the local store so we could get some groceries. As it happens the store was run by the parents of the guy who has drawn the plans for our house. We also met some locals – half of which seem to be English. Not exactly what we had come for but they knew what it was like to start here afresh and were very friendly and helpful.

We arrived on Saturday, so our honeymoon period has been a couple of days driving round and acclimatising ourselves. Reacquainting ourselves with one of the main reasons we came here – the wonderful countryside of forests, hills and rivers. But now, on Monday, the work begins! We have to track down our elusive architect to see how planning permission is coming along and check with the lawyer that everything is in order (and that we actually own the house!). Also the practicalities – first thing is we need to buy a pickup and get some sort of internet connection. Also work out our postal address and liaise with the shipping company to ensure that we have the papers in order to import our stuff. We also need to go to the bank and transfer over some more money to pay for these things. It’s going to be a busy day so no more blogging time…